Controlling Natural Light

Today I want to just give a little hint on a way to control the direction of the natural light on a subject. This image is 100% natural light bouncing off buildings etc. something I talk a lot about in my classes. Like most images you can read the light in the eyes and reflections on the skin. Example, if you look to the left on his face you can see the sun hitting a warm building next to him.

The image is from a Workshop I did in Cuba for a group of European Photographers. I was standing talking to this man and my Spanish is close to zero, but if I wanted him to turn his face to the left or right, all I had to to do was to take a step to the side and his eyes and face would follow. Also having so little depth of field let’s me not have to worry too much about what was happening where in the background. Very often what we can do while photographing people is move ourselves instead of telling them to, happy shooting 🙂